The Waggl blog features strategies for success with real-time employee feedback, insights you can use to boost engagement, and progressive leader spotlights.

Julia Winn

February 1, 2018

CES lowered new-hire employee turnover by 50%. You can too.

Did any employees leave your company this month? Do you know how much they are costing you? The hard cost of losing an employee may be more significant than you’ve imagined.

New research from SHRM calculates that the cost of replacing an employee is somewhere between 90% and 200% of their annual salary. And just this month, Fortune Magazine reported: “Employers are filling jobs at the slowest rate in three years, unable to sign the employees they need as more people find work and stop looking.”

In an era where the level of engagement an employee feels is so crucial to how long they’ll stay at their job, City Electric Supply is staying ahead of the curve and ahead of disengagement. Using Waggl, they now circulate feedback continuously throughout the organization, creating an environment where the employee voice is truly valued.

“Back in 2016, City Electric Supply implemented orientation, and that really
stemmed from responses that we received from employees using Waggl of increased desire for training for our workforce. Since we’ve implemented that program, we’ve seen a reduction in turnover from that specific group of new employees of about 50%. It’s been an absolutely phenomenal program, and the implementation has been fantastic. It’s something that we would never have known about if it wasn’t for Waggl.”

Actionable insights collected through employee feedback quickly inform senior leadership’s agile decision-making within City Electric Supply. CES President and CEO Thomas Hartland-Mackie explains that agility is vital when you’re communicating with employees across thousands of geographically dispersed locations, not to mention rapidly scaling an organization.

“What Waggl has allowed us to do is get that direct unfiltered feedback and really analyze it on a really big scale. When you’re getting a few thousand people responding to a pulse, you can pretty quickly figure out what your problem items are. If you’ve got a thousand or two thousand responses about training, you know that’s an issue. You know you need to look at that more, invest more there. Waggl really has allowed us to cut through a little bit of the noise and really focus on what’s important,” said Thomas Hartland-Mackie.

Michele Elliot is part of the Human Resources department at CES. She adds, “Employee retention is very important. It’s very costly to hire someone, train someone, and then after they’ve had some time in the position if they leave we start the process all over again. It’s important for us to listen to our employees, it’s important to take action on things that are not working and provide a better work environment and just overall career success for our employees here at City Electric Supply.”

Watch this video and learn more about CES, their successful retention, and their transformative employee voice process.

Start transforming your organization with Waggl today. Request a Demo to get started.